: speech : is Parseltongue
/ speech / is mental speak
:speech/ is mental Parseltongue
oOoOoOo
oOoOoOo
Fenrir was not stupid. A foul-smelling sadist who ate human (and occasionally merfolk) babies for breakfast, yes. But he had not become the alpha of the most influential werewolf clan on his brawn alone. Or rather, he had not remained the leader for so many years without also having a strong sense of strategy and politics. In another world, his skills had allowed him to remain the leader for several more decades.
That world, however, was quite a bit different than this one.
As Fenrir tried to decide whether to look into the red or green eye of the small boy he had by the throat, his innate tactical sense rolled over and whined. It was a little talked about but well-known magical fact that since eyes were windows into the soul, any magical creature that could change them was either powerful beyond imagining or out of its bleeding mind. Or, as the few people who had met such beings and lived to ponder had said- most likely both.
Fenrir was too busy trying to clamp down on his bladder to prevent himself from instinctively pissing himself submissively to really notice when his second grabbed another human, but he certainly noticed when the eyes hardened from a previously innocuous seeming emerald green and cherry red to killing curse green and arterial blood red.
After that things happened rather fast.
When the second werewolf grabbed Jeff by the arm and hauled him forward with a smirk, Harry's vision ran red. Voldemort soothed the rage into a productive bolus with the ease of much practice while Harry crushed Fenrir's wrist to free himself and launched his head into the second werewolf's gut. Though three people were on the floor, Harry completely ignored all but the smallest. He rushed to Jeff's side, patting him and running a quick wandless check to make sure the boy was alright. It was a bit disorienting looking for an absence of injuries, rather than trying to see how many more he could cause before his victim died, but Harry was much too busy panicking and Voldemort was much too involved in shoring up their rage to comment on it.
"Are you all right?" Harry asked the other boy.
"Bloody hell!" Burst out one of the other students, though what exactly he was referring to would be debatable.
"I'm fine, Harry." Jeff replied shakily. He looked up into the other's hazel eyes and smiled shakily.
Harry turned back around as he felt the air pressing against him, signaling that someone was trying to rush him. He grabbed the head of the second werewolf with one tiny hand and stopped the rush of the powerful man with little effort. The werewolf snarled and tried to bite at Harry, but Harry merely pushed the wolf backward away from the children.
"While I approve of your artistic sensibilities, I cannot espouse your penchant for terrorizing children." Harry said coolly, though even as the words left his mouth he wondered what 'penchant' meant.
"What?" Fenrir growled, nursing his healing wrist.
Harry took control back before Voldemort could start monologuing. :I don't…!/ "I said, I'm glad you blew up that hideous statue, but bugger off. You're scaring the sprogs."
"You think we are too stupid for your fancy words, wizard?" Fenrir snarled, while his inner tactician whimpered and tried to run away.
"No." Harry said, "I'm sure the people of the stars understand," he nodded his head toward the somewhat dumbfounded looking centaur, "as well as the keepers of gold," he nodded toward the vicious goblins and the dragon. "But I'm pretty sure you needed the translation." He finished, with a feral smile aimed at the werewolf leader.
Fenrir wisely said nothing.
"You know what I've heard, though? That if you kill a werewolf, you can break the curse on everyone they've infected." Harry continued conversationally, though both he and Voldemort knew it was not exactly true.
Fenrir regarded the two eyes sparkling with malevolence: acid green and ember red. "That won't help you, wizard. Only those who don't want the gift will become mortals again." He smirked, thinking he had the boy figured, as much as one could. He straightened a bit, thinking that if the boy was afraid of their numbers, then they had a chance to kill him.
"Is that so?" Harry purred. Fenrir's eyes widened as blood started to leak from the bottom of the darkening scar on the boy's forehead. He didn't get a chance to contemplate what that meant, however, because Harry rushed forward and shoved his hand up through the disgusting rags covering the werewolf's hairy belly and up underneath the ribs to grab the heart. "Muggles can be such wonderful teachers, don't you think?" Harry cooed, feeling the werewolf's heart beating between his fingers and the suction of lungs massaging his arm. "So many delightful lessons on anatomy." And with that he ripped the beating muscle from the man's chest, holding it in his hands and contemplating its rhythm getting slower and more erratic as blood gushed from the body in front of him and the most feared werewolf in Britain toppled to the ground. Harry repressed the sudden and intense urge to cackle maniacally, though he was a bit disappointed when he succeeded in doing so.
"You!" the second werewolf snarled, leaping towards Harry, who caught him again with a small put-upon sigh. He contemplated the heart in his other hand before dropping the feebly twitching collapsed thing on top of the body it used to reside in before bringing both his hands up to hold the werewolf's head. Harry twisted the snarling man's neck until it gave with a satisfyingly wet crackling thunk, then dropped the second werewolf on top of Fenrir.
"My, my. Those two were not well socialized." Harry commented. He looked back up at the group in front if him, blood leaking around a brilliant emerald eye and complementing the red one.
"We know your kind, wizard. We will not be kept down any longer with your derision." The male centaur said, prancing menacingly forward, his dinner plate sized hooves hitting the marble floor with resounding clacks with each dancing step.
"You keep yourselves down, associating with filth like that." Harry retorted, not terribly intimidated as the centaur was keeping well back from Harry and the twitching bodies at his feet.
"We are not filth!" Snarled another werewolf, from the look of him, perhaps the omega of the group. "We are just as human as you are, and just as much thinking beings deserving respect as anyone else in this room."
Harry smirked. "Oh, I agree with you." The werewolf looked at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "Now that Fenrir is dead, I see no one in this room I consider a lesser being. But anyone who tortures and kills children is much, much less than an animal." His eyes narrowed. "They are walking corpses I simply haven't gotten around to, yet."
Further conversation was cut off as aurors burst into the atrium. The various non-humans fought the wizards viciously; spells, hooves, arrows and bursts of fire crisscrossed the space in front of the huddled first and second years.
Harry shrugged. He had no stake in this conflict. Now that he and Jeff were no longer being specifically targeted Harry simply stepped back and set up a shield to cover the non-combatants. He sank to the ground, crossing arms and legs and closing his eyes, waiting for the fighting to end or someone to focus on him as a target.
"Harry?" Jeff's voice was shaken and quiet.
Harry turned to him and opened his hazel eyes and smiled slightly. "Yes, Jeff?" But the other boy had nothing further to say. They sat there for a moment, lights from various spells impacting the shield dancing in colored patterns across both their faces. Harry frowned when Jeff's face started to scrunch up. "What's wrong, Jeff?" Harry asked gently, letting his arms fall from across his chest and land in his lap, tilting his head to the side.
"Th… they're dead." Jeff said, starting to shake in earnest. His gaze was very carefully not landing on the pair of bodies not five feet from where Harry was sitting. Harry blinked in surprise. In truth, he had completely forgotten about the bodies.
Harry stood up and hugged the larger boy. "I know, Jeff." Jeff started bawling on Harry's shoulder, his sobs making his whole body convulse. Harry rubbed circles on his friend's back, both he and Voldemort feeling completely out of their depth. They were used to war and torture- everyone had known the stakes. Harry had been just as devastated as anyone else seeking comfort and Voldemort had been causing the pain.
"Why are they dead?" Jeff asked, and Harry knew that the boy wasn't asking why Harry had killed them.
"Do you know Remus Lupin?" Harry asked, not sure if the other boy would.
Jeff looked down at Harry, confused at the seemingly random question. "Yes. He's not here, though." Jeff frowned, momentarily losing his hysteria while he tried to figure out what Harry was getting at.
"That werewolf infected Remus. When he was a boy younger than you are- attacked and savaged him so badly he barely survived. That monster didn't have to act like that, werewolves are just normal people with a somewhat hairy problem. But he enjoyed it. You heard him- he wanted to eat me. And then eat you, too." Harry looked down at the dawning horror on Jeff's face, not sure if this was helping or not, seeing as the initial problem was a shattering of his innocence. "Life can be cruel sometimes, Jeff. I took the opportunity to make it a little better."
Jeff let his head fall back onto Harry's shoulder, bending a little bit to do so. Harry sighed and patted his friend on the back. He looked around idly, but his attention was brought back rather quickly when he noticed all the other first and second years huddling against the wall, a few clinging to it as though they wanted to get as far away as possible. Harry wasn't sure if they were afraid of the bodies, or of him, or the fighting, or something else entirely. He sighed.
"Hey." Harry called to the assembled students, most of whom jumped at his voice. "Where are all of the professors, anyway?"
"Stunned." Marfic said sullenly. "Freak." He muttered under his breath. Harry heard him and couldn't help a twinge of anger from shooting through him. It quickly died when he saw the other boy's eyes widen and his face pale.
Harry took a deep breath and let it go. There was no place for that now, these children were not enemies. "Where?" He asked, striving for calm. A group of children huddled together even more tightly, shooting Harry panicked and somewhat hostile glances. Harry turned back to Jeff and slowly disentangled them. "Ok, there, Jeff? I'm going to wake up our professors."
"Ok." Jeff said, standing back from Harry, but hunching over his chest a bit as though he was in pain.
"Do you want to help?" Harry asked. Jeff brightened considerably. Together the two of them moved over to where the students were closing ranks. "I can revive them. I swear upon my magic that I do not intend any harm." Harry said solemnly, recognizing their bravery.
The muggle-borns still glared at him stubbornly, but the pure and half-bloods convinced them to back off. A pile of bodies was revealed as they moved. Harry heard Jeff gulp beside him before the other boy realized that they were all still breathing.
Harry went to the first one and ran a quick scan over the still form. Nothing but a simple stun spell. Harry enervated the long form and moved among the rest, checking and reversing the stuns on them all. The professors immediately started to shout and ask questions. Harry ignored them, working through the rest of the casualties as none of the adult wizards seemed cogent enough to take up the task. At the last form Harry paused, staring down, frozen. Below him was… himself. An adult form, messy black hair, round glasses and a familiar face. A face that no longer looked back at him when we stared into the mirror. He snapped out of the reverie and enervated James Potter.
"Harry?" James asked, looking completely lost. Harry choked on a cry and fell into the man's arms. "Whoah! Easy, there."
"Step away." A voice came from above. Both Harry and James looked up, not sure to whom the voice was referring. "That 'boy' is under custody of the ministry on suspicion of not being human." The voice was that of a woman in Ministry robes and she was pointing angrily at Harry.
"Hey, Harry may be an annoying little psycho, but he's fully human." James retorted hotly. Harry couldn't help the wry grin that slipped onto his face. Trust his father to be so insulting when defending someone.
"Release him, Mr. Potter." The woman's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Really?" Harry asked, feeling James jump underneath of him. "You're arresting me in the middle of an attack on the Ministry of Magic while I'm holding up a barrier protecting you and all these children?" He shook his head. Maybe he should just blow up the damn place and take over. :Yes!/ Harry just snorted. At both of them.
"You can talk?" James asked as Harry and the ministry official glared at each other. "In real words, I mean?"
"Um." Harry was at a loss of words for a second. He hadn't really made a conscious decision to start, just spoken as it had been necessary to do so. "Yes?"
"Great! Any horrible secrets of Severus' you want to tell me? I need some leverage to pry him off of dear, sweet Lily."
"Mr. Potter!" The official seemed scandalized, though because she was being ignored or because James was talking to the 'criminal' Harry wasn't sure.
"As much as this pains me to say… I think you may have lost that battle." Harry winced as Voldemort happily supplied the images of his mother and the greasy Defense assistant rolling about on the floor half naked. He felt himself turning a bit green.
"Those wankers! Can't they have a bit of decency? In front of a child, no less." James' face transformed from disgust to devious. "Ooh. That will definitely work as blackmail."
Tired of being ignored the ministry official yanked Harry from his father's grip. Harry was surprised that he almost started crying at the loss. James Potter was an absolute ass, but Harry just really wanted someone to hug him. :It's becoming a disgusting necessity./ Voldemort commented. Harry was gracious enough not to point out that the ex-Dark Lord had been having just as warm and fuzzy thoughts as Harry himself had been.
"Oi! Are you hurt, Harry?" James asked, jumping to his feet as he saw the congealing blood clumped on Harry's forearm.
Harry looked down and winced. He should have done a quick Scourgify before he had woken any of the adults up.
"No!" A Ravenclaw from the side squeaked. "He shoved his hand through the man's stomach and pulled out his heart!"
"Nonsense." The official scoffed. Harry eyed her with surprise. If she wasn't arresting him for that, what was she arresting him for?
"No, I did." Harry affirmed, seeing no point in denying it with so many eye witnesses.
The woman dropped his arm like Harry had told her he had highly contagious Bubutuber Plague. "What?" She squeaked, backing up.
"He was going to eat us." Jeff added, scowling at the Ravenclaw. "It was self-defense."
"Eat you?" The woman looked about ready to faint.
"Ugh. Who the hell would want to eat you two scrawny runts?" James asked, looking not quite sure if he believed Harry or not.
"Fenrir Greyback." Harry answered, pointing at the body.
The woman glanced at the body and went over to it, rolling it over with one high-heal clad foot. She apparently recognized him because she stepped back with a start and then poked him again with her foot. "Well, that's no matter. I thought you said he killed a man. That's just a werewolf."
Harry frowned at her attitude and casual dismissal. "So if I used his blood to infect you and then ripped out your heart, that wouldn't be murder, either?" Voldemort asked sweetly from Harry's mouth, eyes flashing briefly before Harry slammed back into control and shoved the protesting basilisk deep down into his subconscious.
The woman in front of him was now so pale it was a wonder she was so conscious, and sweat had broken out on her brow. "Of… of course not!" She stuttered. "I'm a witch, not an animal."
Harry was angry, now. "Oh." He answered, his tone quite close to Voldemort's. "When, pray tell, would it stop being so? Is there a time element built in? Would you need to go through your first moon? Kill your first human? Or maybe Muggles don't count, and you would need to attack a wizard?"
Harry ignored her spluttering response and instead focused on the battle. Both his souls had noted a change in the pitch of the battle. It seemed that the House Elves had returned to the group and were popping in and out, taking the various living, injured and dead non-humans with them. Harry wondered why they had waited so long until he heard the dragon hissing about 'files.' First Harry was surprised to hear the dragon and could feel Voldemort was mildly surprised as well, but putting that aside he became quite curious what files the dragon was talking about. After the last spells cast at the disappearing (chuckling at the folly of humans) dragon and the many vicious goblins silence fell, heavy and thick and making Harry's ears ring at the suddenness of it.
"Damn." One of the aurors said, kicking the statue wizard's head viciously and sending it skidding into the ruins of the fountain.
Harry let his barrier fall, startling the twitchy Aurors so much he almost had to raise it again.
"What the hell?"
Harry sighed gustily and rolled his neck. His muscles were starting to twitch and feel weak from the rush of adrenalin, and what he supposed was an intense influx of magic. He sat down on the ground, feeling even weaker, now, without the expenditure of energy on the shield acting as an odd sort of crutch.
"Harry!" Jeff cried, grabbing the small body as Harry slumped all the way to the ground, preventing him from hitting his head.
Harry's arms flung out as he tried to fix himself in space. /What the hell?/
:We overdid it a bit./ Voldemort said wryly, wrapping his long body along Harry's nerves and settling the other enough that he didn't feel like he was going to vomit anymore.
/Overdid what?/
:Didn't you notice? We were working together, in concert. The glorious rush of power and strength should have tipped you off. And I rather thought your sudden fascination in the last beats of a disembodied heart might have awoken your Gryffindor sensibilities./ Voldemort hissed wryly.
Suddenly Harry felt queasy again. He hadn't even noticed or thought about it. Even while comforting Jeff it had seemed perfectly natural to have ripped the living heart from a man. And it was- for Voldemort.
:Now, Harry. I've never done something so boorishly Muggle. That was your own improvisational technique./
At this Harry scrambled up and darted behind one of the desks at the edge of the room and threw up into the trashcan he found there.
"Harry!" Several voices called out to him, all with different emotions fueling the cry. Harry could hear none of them, absorbed in his black despair and the gloating satisfaction pooling from the basilisk in his head. Harry shoved Voldemort down into the recesses of his mind and immediately threw up again as the backlash from his magic hit him again.
"Harry!" The voice was closer this time and Harry looked up blearily into to concerned face of Severus Snape. In any other circumstance, Harry might have felt an almost instinctive surprise at seeing that expression directed at him from that face, but now all he felt was tired, sore and dirty inside his own mind. Snape attempted to gather him up, but Harry pushed him away. He didn't deserve any compassion. He had let a megalomaniac loose inside his mind and onto the world. /Even if Fenrir had deserved it/ a tiny part of his mind whispered, so softly that Harry himself didn't hear it, though Voldemort, pushed into a similar corner, could.
"All of you, step away from that… thing." The ministry official was back, and this time she had reinforcements in the form of aurors. Some of them seemed to be a bit hesitant, while others were looking at Harry with hard eyes.
"What are you talking about?" Severus hissed, his voice almost as poisonous as his older self had been able to manage.
"We are placing him under arrest." Harry hiccupped an ironic cough. "Right now."
"What the bloody hell did he do?" Snape snapped.
"He was able to incapacitate two werewolves and revive twelve people. All while maintaining a shield across half this atrium for nearly fifteen minutes." The woman hissed.
"You're arresting him for doing your job?" Severus asked, his voice too shocked to remain poisonous. The hesitant aurors shifted in place, while the ones who were scowling now looked nearly murderous.
"We're arresting him for being suspected non-human." One of the angry aurors growled.
A flicker of worry flitted over Snape's face, not enough for any of the aurors to catch, but James, who was standing off to the side, looked at his classmate oddly. Severus drew himself up with as much dignity as he could manage sitting on the floor. "That is ludicrous." He stated empathically. "My father will not allow it." Harry felt the surprising urge to laugh. Just at that moment, Snape looked entirely too much like Malfoy.
"Your 'father' will have no say on the matter. You know the new laws as much as anyone." Another auror hissed. Harry got the impression that this particular one might know either Tom or Snape, based on the cold expression aimed directly at the lanky youth.
"That's right. I do know them. Apparently better than you do. Nothing this boy has done points to him being anything other than human." Snape sneers.
"Quite right, my dear boy." Snape turns to look behind him with a look of sickened horror on his suddenly pale face.
Harry turns to look as well, his face calm and his eyes hazel, as he surprised more that it had taken the old wizard this long, more than the fact he was about to do something 'for the Greater Good' as he saw fit.
Dumbledore continued, speaking calmly and in a somewhat archaic accent: "He is, in fact, a Dark Artefact most foul. That boy is a Horucrux."
OOOoOoOoOo
A/N: This author was not as disciplined as this story's protagonist and was unable to resist cackling like a demented evil overlord while writing certain portions of this chapter. This author may also have read too many Sesshy Inuyasha fanfictions. (If you get that joke, you do, too. lol!)
Inspiration for Evil!Schizoid!Possessed!Harry/Voldemort comes to you thanks to dellacouer's "It's All Relative on the Hellmouth". Go read it. After you review mine.
(How cool the new button, eh? I quite enjoy clicking on it, and I swear that's not even a not-so-subtly hidden hint. Ok, it is, but I also really like clicking it. Something about that particular shade of green…)